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Sixty Chefs in the Palace, and Still ‘Just Average’

By Elaine Sciolino April 8, 2011 4:57 pmApril 8, 2011 4:57 pm

VERSAILLES, France — The generals in crisp white uniforms plotted their strategy in the grand Hall of Battles in the Palace of Versailles. They were there not to recall the military victories of France’s past depicted in the graphic paintings lining the walls, but to celebrate the ritual of dining.

The dinner was a public relations extravaganza for the Relais & Chateaux hotel and restaurant group, which brought in its own chefs and paid $114,000 to rent Versailles for the night. (The cost of electricity, water, security and staff members was extra.) Les Grands Tables du Monde sent several chefs of its own.

Versailles is the most glorious chateau in the world, the place where Louis XIV raised fine dining to an art. But it is also a museum without a kitchen. A long, white marble corridor with sculptures of kings and noblemen had to be lined with 17 portable work stations, each consisting of one table, one oven and one electric burner, but no gas or running water.

“Let’s be honest,” said Patrick Henriroux, chef of the two-star Michelin La Pyramide in Vienne near Lyon. “This is not about creating in a kitchen. It’s more like cooking on a camping trip.”

As vice-president in charge of the grand chefs for the group, Mr. Henriroux was camp director. He organized his high-profile and potentially high-maintenance gastronomic greats in teams of three before deploying them to their humble work stations. With so many knives, “I had to make sure they got along,” he said.

Daniel Humm of New York’s Eleven Madison Park paced up and down the long corridor. Hélène Darroze, one of only two women among the five dozen chefs, was hugged and kissed a lot. Marc Meurin of Le Château de Beaulieu bonded quickly with his kitchen-mate, Philippe Mille of Les Crayères in Reims. “We’ve been great friends for an hour already,” Mr. Mille said. For their brief time together, three-star Michelin chefs Marc Haeberlin, Michel Troisgros, Jean-Michel Lorain, Annie Féolde, Jean-Georges Klein, Patrick Bertron, Régis Marcon and Eric Pras and all the two-stars, one-stars and no-stars worked as equals.

By most accounts, even their collective talent could not overcome the logistical hurdles. Most of the raw materials had to be pre-cooked and prepared off-site by the caterer Potel et Chabot. The chefs were asked to offer inspiration from their signature dishes, but their task was less to cook than to slice, dice, heat and accessorize food wheeled in on metal racks or stacked in white boxes.
Adding to the complexity of the meal, each chef prepared one course for about forty people. The cold appetizer chefs chose scallops or lobster; the hot appetizer chefs sea bass or morels, and the hot main course chefs duck or saddle of lamb.

One chef ranted that the 2002 Dom Pérignon Millésime Champagne was insufficiently chilled. Another searched fruitlessly for more squares of Savoy cabbage.

Guests muttered that the caviar dollops on the lightly smoked sea bass were too cold, the gelled Breton lobster claws too bland and the canard de Challans too naked. “Where were the great sauces to celebrate history and tradition?” said Jean-Claude Ribaut, the food critic for Le Monde. “Everything was a little flat, just average.”

Louis XIV might not have been entirely surprised. Certainly, the Sun King was a pioneer of the art of modern cuisine, demanding, for example, the appearance on his table of the freshest of peas and other vegetables picked daily from his royal garden. He engaged in a nightly theater of dining on 20 and 30 dishes, often in full view of the court. But the hot dishes, prepared in a separate building, more often than not arrived cold.

The disappointment on Wednesday night was particularly sharp because the dinner was intended to emulate “the gastronomic meal of the French” as recognized by Unesco, the United Nations’ cultural arm. Unesco honored the choreography of perfect eating à la française as a “social custom aimed at celebrating the most important moments in the lives of individuals and groups.”
According to the ruling, the perfect French meal requires meticulous menu-planning and product-choosing; the harmony of food with wines; beautiful table settings; smelling, tasting and cutting large items at the table with “codified gestures that symbolize sharing.” There must be “respect” for structure, beginning with an aperitif and ending with liqueurs, with at least four courses in–between (a starter, one or more main dishes, cheese and dessert.) Most important is “gastronomic discourse” and lingering at the table after dessert. Sometimes, the meal is accompanied by singing.

Half of the proceeds from the Versailles dinner will fund a campaign to create the country’s first museum of gastronomy as part of the implementation of the Unesco designation. The other half will help earthquake relief efforts in Japan.

“Our colleagues in Japan are suffering enormously,” said Jaume Tàpies, the Relais & Chateaux president. “The country is engulfed in sadness. People aren’t celebrating by dining in fine restaurants.”

The guests at Versailles were happy to celebrate. The majority were Relais & Chateaux loyalists and members of its “Club 5C” of best customers. Some planted themselves in front of the pre-dinner foie gras station. Some wandered through the museum’s exhibition of thrones of the world. Some chatted, loudly, throughout the speeches. Many took photographs of the place settings, the anemone centerpieces, the Chamber, the food, each other.

There was even more conviviality among the chefs. Many of them were already friends, and this was a grand occasion to spend time together. Before the dinner, they gathered in an ante-room to eat, drink and engage in a lot of Unesco-friendly “gastronomic discourse.”

They grabbed hefty slices of cold Paris ham as they were cut from the bone. They washed down foie gras on toast with the Dom Pérignon Champagne. Marc Meneau of L’Espérance poured generous glasses of 1996 Millésime Château d’Yquem that paired well with and Roquefort from the Maison Carles. There was a heartfelt toast: “To Japan!”

The climactic moment for them came just before dessert, when the chefs and their apprentices gathered at the top of the grand staircase leading to the Hall of Battles to take pictures. In their midst was 84-year-old Pierre Troisgros. Suddenly, the group burst into applause and cheers for the chef whose dishes are legends and whose restaurant has held its three-star Michelin status since 1968.

“A dinner is all about pleasure-sharing,” said Edouard Loubet, chef of the Domaine de Capelongue, the Michelin two-star restaurant in Provence. “The food counts for only 20 percent, only 20 percent, no matter how extraordinary it is. Most of the rest is conversation, bringing together friends and family. It’s no good to dine alone.”